The commissioning of the shared-cost-Mwami/Mchinji One Border Post Wednesday is an impetus to the growth of the bilateral trade between two Neighbors-Zambia and Malawi, research shows.
In recent years, Malawi agriculture imports from Zambia, including Tobacco, soaps, sugar confectionery, lubricants, iron and steel, beverages, vinegar, waxes, candles, modeling paste averaged US$127 million. Malawi’s exports to Zambia averaged US$27 million during the period under review according to United Nations’ COMTRADE data.
The economy of Malawi, 80% agriculture dependent with most of the population being smallholder farmers. The sector provides direct and indirect employment, economic growth, export earnings, poverty reduction, food security, and nutrition.
Maize is the major food crop and is the focus of Malawi’s policy agenda, but tobacco has been and continues to be the dominant cash crop.
Tobacco is responsible for more than 40 percent of the country’s annual total export earnings, additional cash crops are dried legumes, sugar, tea, cotton, and nuts.
The government acknowledges that agricultural diversification is needed to grow the economy and provide increased food security.
Other lead-sub-sectors in the agriculture industry are tobacco, crop farming, livestock production, horticulture, fisheries and aquaculture, irrigation, and agro-processing.
Malawi’s desire to move away from reliance on rain-fed agriculture is opening opportunities for irrigation farming, the UN adds in its report seen by FRA.
Most exports to Malawi from Zambia included petroleum oil, primarily agricultural products, textiles and garments, wood and wood products, among others, the Zambia Development Agency-a-Government-owned investment attraction wing says in its report.
The opening of the border post will double export and imports of agriculture and other products and bolster economic growth, officials envisage.
And the commissioning of the Mwami/Mchinji border post has elated Zambia’s minister of commerce trade and industry, Chipoka Mulenga who says the project was a realization of hard work and commitment by the two countries to enhance bilateral trade.
Minister Mulenga cites the meeting with his Malawi counterpart on 26 October at which the duo agreed to operationalize and launch the One Stop Border Post.
“What we are witnessing today has been born out of years of joint collaboration between our two sister countries. This is evidence that nothing is impossible to achieve when we decide to work together,” he said in a statement during the launch by the two leaders of the US$7.5 million-African Development Bank multi-million-dollar project,
Arguably, Minister Mulenga notes that the launch of this One Stop Border Post is a key milestone for both Zambia and Malawi as it is expected to enhance imports, exports and transits.
He pledged to ensure he facilitated the cost of doing business between the two countries.
The One Stop Border Post will contribute to national and regional trade facilitation agendas by reducing the clearance time for consignments at the border whose spillover effect will be a reduction in the overall cost of doing business.
During the launch, President Hakainde Hichilema and Malawi’s Lazarous pledged to fast track completion of works of the project whose construction started in 2018.
President Hichilema thanked cooperating partners in the actualisation of the One Stop Border post, noting that it is the most practical and beneficial way of working with the people on the African continent.
President Hichilema and his Malawi counterpart however did not announce the signing of any specific or quantifiable bilateral trade deal and the visit was mostly concentrated on diplomatic etiquette.
And Malawi President Lazarous Chakwera, also chairperson of the Southern Africa Development Community – SADC re-affirmed his control’s resolve to timely harmonize and simplify border controls to increase the volume of trade.
Malawi is eager to learn from Zambia as the country already has similar operational facilities
